Stampers Gallery

It was a lovely Spring day up here in the north west yesterday and also a lovely day at Stampers Gallery. Sue and Phil had organised everything perfectly as always, so I was busy for the whole day, which is how I like it! Stampers Gallery won one of the best retailer craft awards, so were feeling (quite rightly!) very proud of their achievement.
Here are some of the many ladies who spent time with me as I inked and stamped my way through the day. My only gripe was that nobody brought any ATC's to swap with me! Here is a card that I made yesterday using one of the stamps from the "Swirly Bird" set (PICS013). I drew the swirly background using Sakura silver and gold shadow pens and added some adhesive gems...I am using these a lot at the moment! I stamped the bird with two colours of Distress Ink and then waterbrushed the colour across the image before cutting out. The image was matted onto a card and I added some more swirls. A simple card - and not a very good photo...my camera seemed to be objecting to the amount of light yesterday for some reason.

This card uses the butterfly and tiny flower from the "Count My Blessings" stamp set. The butterfly was coloured using several shades of Versamagic Dewdrop ink pads (I adore these pads - so many colours and the ink is so versatile) then stamped and cut out. I used Marvy Le Plume pens to apply colour directly to the flower stamp to give a shaded effect, then used the fine point of the green pen to add the stems. I added the text using one of the stamps from the Messages set 1 (PICS010) again using a Versamagic Dewdrop ink pad.

The last card that I photographed uses the same little flower stamp and another from the Messages set. I really had fun making the panel for this one, using several shades of Distress Ink pads (Fired Brick, Old Paper and Walnut Stain) which were applied to a piece of cream card using the foam blending tool. I then flicked a little water across the inked card and, after about ten seconds, dabbed away the water with a tissue. The inks react with the water, which "bleaches" some of the colour out...great technique and one of the many fabby things about these inks. I used the pens to stamp the flowers in the same way as the previous card and stamped the text with the Walnut Stain ink pad. I popped it straight onto a DL card blank...it didn't need a mat around it because of the Walnut Stain edging... and then added three more flowers to the bottom of the card using paler versions of the colours in the main image. Oh yes, I also added a touch of sparkle to the main flowers using a clear Stardust gel pen. This is a very simple card, but it just worked because of the way that the colours compliment each other. Hope you like them anyway!

As promised, I will be adding step by steps for creating the Owl/tree cards, but please bear with me as I'm working on quite a few projects at the moment. And thank you to Sue and Phil who gave me a lovely bunch of flowers before I left the shop, which was much appreciated.

Well, that's all for the moment folks. Enjoy the rest of the weekend! Lindsay